Are You Meeting Your Needs?

"NVC suggests behind every action, however ineffective, tragic, violent, or abhorrent to us, is an attempt to meet a need."

~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

We live our lives from moment to moment, yet most of the time we are on autopilot, reacting out of habit rather than out of awareness and presence of mind. By creating a space for attention and respect in every moment, we create the space for choice and freedom in our lives.

Our emotions are data. They continually give us feedback about our experience. The primary function of emotions is to help us react quickly to our environment to increase our chances of survival. They promote either avoidance behaviour away from real or perceived dangers or seeking behaviour towards pleasure or things that increase our survivability.

Much of the time, though, we are either not listening or we don’t understand what they are trying to tell us.

When we experience emotions, particularly difficult ones, it’s like being in a giant bubble. It’s all-consuming and we can’t see the boundaries. Naming our emotions starts to shrink them down to something you can hold.

According to Non-Violent Communication, our feelings are driven by our underlying needs. When our needs are met, we feel good; when they’re not, we experience uncomfortable or difficult emotions. Our feelings then drive our actions. We’re much more likely to snap at a loved one if we’re feeling irritated than when we’re content.

Needs

Needs refer to what is most alive in us: our core values and deepest human longings. Understanding, naming, and connecting with our needs helps us improve our relationship with ourselves, as well as foster understanding with others, so we are all more likely to take actions that meet everyone’s needs.

All individuals have needs and values that sustain and enrich their lives. When those needs are met, we experience comfortable feelings, like happiness or peacefulness, and when they are not, we experience uncomfortable feelings, like frustration. Understanding that we, as well as those around us, have these needs is perhaps the most important step in learning live authentically. Our needs are an expression of our deepest shared humanity. All human beings share key needs for survival: hydration, nourishment, rest, shelter, and connection to name a few. We also share many other needs, though we may experience them to varying degrees and may experience them more or less intensely at various times.

Strategies

The key to identifying, expressing, and connecting with needs is to focus on words that describe shared human experience rather than words that describe the particular strategies to meet those needs. Whenever we include a person, a location, an action, a time, or an object in our expression of what we want, we are describing a strategy rather than a need. For example: “I want you to come to my birthday party” may be a particular strategy to meet a need for love and connection.

When we can connect with the underlying need, rather than focusing on a specific strategy, we open up the possibility for alternative strategies to get our needs met. This means we're more likely to meet our needs, especially if we're asking another person to help us.

Watch Your Language

One thing I observe teaching Authentic Relating is that many of us aren't very good at talking about our feelings. We find all sorts of ways to distance ourselves from what we're feeling, especially if it's uncomfortable.

A common way of doing this is saying "I feel....[anything other than an emotion word like happy, sad, angry or afraid]. You might already be familiar with the importance of using "I" statements when it comes to non-violent communication. So "I feel" might sound perfectly reasonable but "I feel like..." or "I feel ....[ed]" is a story or a belief masquerading as a feeling.

Here's an example. "I feel rejected". "I feel like you're rejecting me". Both of these are making assumptions about how the other person feels. On the other hand, "I feel upset and I have a story that you don't care me about" names both the emotion and the associated thought.

Notice how you feel reading those different phrases. What do you do in your body in response?

This is a powerful and challenging shift. I notice how I often I still use verbs (words ending in -ed) when I want to describe a feeling and it makes such a difference to how I can be with my own experience and share that with others, especially in moments of conflict.

Doing it differently

This is a skill we can develop and then need to put into practice as often as we can. This isn’t always easy – in fact, it’s rarely been easy for me!

A great place to start is to identify at least one time each day where you can be quiet for a few moments to check in with how you're feeling. From there, see if you can identify the needs those emotions are reflecting. What needs are being met? Which aren’t?

You can also do this practice when you feel particularly activated or upset or after you’ve had a difficult encounter, as well as in times that feel less emotionally activating. What is it you are really asking for in this moment?

You can use this simple flow as a guide (you don’t have to use this specific language):

When I notice/see that______________
I feel ______________
because my need for ________________ is/is not met.

There are some examples below to help you. I've deliberately included some examples of emotionally distancing language. See if you can rephrase these in a way that has you take more ownership of your experience.

What we might say The emotion Needs guesses
I'm worried he'll never finish his project. concern efficiency, competence, awareness,  compassion, effectiveness, purpose
I feel inadequate as a parent. shame appreciation, acceptance, empathy, competence,  understanding
I feel rejected. lonely closeness, acceptance, love, belonging,  companionship, trust, harmony

Let me know how this resonates for you and what you're taking away.